Introduction

Hi guys, M0nDi here and I made this generic guide in an attempt to help people improve their game by giving tips and examples of certain situations. I will be covering quite a lot of topics such as last hitting, raging/flaming, map awareness, not blaming the jungler, wards (srs bsns), kill effectiveness (giving kills to ad/ap),builds and positioning. If anyone suggests any other topics I will also include them in this guide! It is more important to improve your own skill because you can't always blame people on your team and even though you may get feeders/trolls/afkers/ragequitters or whatever, the thing that you should remember is that the good players will rise in elo over time and the more "bad" players will decrease in elo.

I believe that if people thought about what they did in games more often instead of flaming at team mates or just getting mad in general instead of staying relaxed and thinking about why they lost that game, why their score was 0-12-0 or why they had 50 cs 30 minutes in as Ezreal or Ashe for example.

People in the game these days are too proud to admit when they do something wrong and I think that's the wrong attitude to have if you want to improve your ability in League of Legends. I hope that you guys find this guide helpful and if even one person finds it useful, I will be happy!

Last Hitting!

The key to getting really good at last hitting is practice. Practice, practice, practice! Even if that means going into a custom game alone or with bots and make last hitting your main goal since you don’t have other things to worry about such as ganks or enemy harass (if alone).

When you feel that you have improved your last hitting, you can add bots into the game to kinda simulate what it would be like to play against another player so now you can improve your last hitting while under more pressure. Also, try to time your click well in order to not miss the cs because different champions have completely different attack animations and with practice you will notice that your last hitting will drastically improve.

You can the learn to manage last hitting and harassing at the same time. Remember that last hitting minions is guaranteed gold in your pocket. This guide from xWhatTheMoosex will help you improve... It certainly helped me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ktlXTUo9cQ&feature=plcp Also, check out his other videos, they are very good and props to him for creating and uploading those guides!

Rage!

DON'T DO IT

(Not raging seriously helps...try it.) Surely you've had someone rage/flame you in the past... not just in LoL but in other games and even in real life. How did getting raged at make you feel? Not happy, I bet. So remember that when you're in game and players are doing badly, flaming will not help them in any way. It is more likely that flaming will just lead to more feeding/bad play or players going afk/leaving. Seriously, guys... do you really think that that feeding Renekton at top is going to listen to what you have to say if all you're going to do is call him bad/stupid/noob etc, I've seen some creative ones (monkey **** licker) I mean, what...? I'll say it once more. Raging does not help you or your team's situation in any way whatsoever so just don't do it.

The best thing to do is to nicely tell them to do something that they didn’t do in the last fight (“hey janna, when kennen ults can you ult too please to push him away ” or if your team keeps dying to a fed ashe… Instead of saying “/ALL NOOB TEAM NO GET ARMOR OMG NOOBS” just tell your team “guys ashe is destroying us, we should get some armor so we can survive for longer to focus her and win”.

I know that sometimes it’s hard to not rage but just always keep reminding yourself that raging/flaming will increase the chances of your team losing and you don’t want that…right?

Map Awareness!

A lot of players die to ganks because they don’t watch the map. I’ve even seen this happen when the ganker runs straight through the sight of a Sight Ward and the players about to be ganked have no idea what’s about to happen.

You don’t have to sacrifice creep score in order to watch the map so you don't get ganked… all you need to do is have a quick glance at the map between creep kills while you wait for the next minion to get low enough to last hit. When you master this, you should survive a lot more often because you see the ganker coming and can get away in time.

By doing this, the player attempting to gank you wastes time that could be spent on getting creep kills and securing gold for themselves, thus putting them at a disadvantage or just slowing them down if they’re fed and stopping them from snowballing.

Another important subject that comes under map awareness is when players go missing. I see this game after game… players don’t watch the map and die to ganks then “/ALL OMG NO SS MID NOOB TEAM”. In all honesty, it’s a lot easier to look at the map and see that someone is missing than expecting people to say “ss” and “re” whenever someone goes missing and returns.

However, since people are always too occupied by other things happening your best option is to wait for an appropriate time so you won't miss anything and call "ss". However, it wastes time and could cause the player typing to unnecessarily miss cs.

To make a long point short… look at the map and if you don’t see an enemy, they are “ss” and when you do see them, they are “re”. However, since people are always too occupied by other things happening your best option is to wait for an appropriate time so you won't miss anything and you know you're safe and call "ss".

There are other things that would come under map awareness; e.g. you look at the map and see that the enemy jungler is in your jungle taking your blue because your jungler had it warded. You should ping it and coordinate a gank on the enemy jungler because stealing is a sin, right? So they deserve to be punished!

Game sense

You know what I mean… those times when it’s 45 minutes into the game and you’re grouped as 5 in mid with your team when suddenly a wild enemy team appears at bot so you go after them instead of going for baron or pushing mid and taking an inhib. Yeah, that. You need to grab every opportunity to take the lead or push your advantage.

If you somehow gain an advantage in your lane then you should try to maintain it as much as you can by zoning which denies them cs and experience so that they will have less and less impact in team fights later on in the game. However, when zoning and denying, your opponent will probably ask their jungler for a gank, meaning that you’re going to want to be careful and ward the river as soon as possible to avoid those jungler ganks. Not only does this help you live, but it slowly starts to put the enemy jungler behind too as well as the opponent in your lane because the enemy jungler has just wasted time on an unsuccessful gank when he could have been in his jungle gaining gold and experience, so going back to my previous section… Wards are srs bsns.

Dragon is also very important because it gives global gold and experience so you should keep it warded (like I said… wards are srs bsns.) Whenever the opportunity arises, you should take dragon. E.g. you spot the enemy jungler ganking top lane. At this point you should let your bot lane and mid know that you want to take dragon because it’s pretty much free since the enemy jungler is at top lane. And who knows, you could even get some kills after dragon because another opponent tried to steal it which puts your team even further ahead or helps you catch up if you’re behind.

However, it could also go wrong because of poor coordination and team play which leads to an ally getting picked off while taking dragon so you just need to be careful and remember that the main goal while taking dragon is to actually take it and not go aggressive against the enemy even though they may not be able to do anything about the fact that you’re taking dragon and their jungler is at top lane.

Surrendering - you need to make sure it is the right decision before you do it... For example, giving up first blood is not, in any shape or form an excuse for you to type "surrender at 20, omg noobs so bad". Just keep your cool and keep playing the game while always trying your best to win the game.

When teams are ahead, there is a higher chance that they will get over-confident or cocky which could lead to big mistakes that may allow the opposing team to come back into the game so when you're fed and snowballing, make sure you don't go too balls deep unless you are sure that you can win. E.g. don't go 1v2/3/4/5 because you are fed unless you are 100% sure that you can come out on top. Also, that raging teams make just as many mistakes as snowballing teams do. It just usually happens that the snowballing teams have the buffs and items to cover more of their mistakes. If a team is behind, they just need to organize and they are sure to catch a player or two out of position. And sometimes, that is all that is necessary to turn the tide.

Wards!

Sight Wards WIN GAMES. There’s this weird misconception about who buys the wards. Some people believe that the support should buy all the wards… some people believe that everyone should buy wards. Well, the truth is, a support should get wards but he/she shouldn’t have to do all the warding alone.

The top laner should get a ward on their first return to base to avoid being ganked by the enemy. The same goes for the mid lane... it may be a bit more costly for the mid lane because he/she might have to get 2 wards because there are 2 sides that you can get ganked from but in the end, it is worth is.

Here are a few examples of when a ward can be your best friend: you are playing top lane and an enemy is in the brush in the river but you have it warded and can see them the whole time. Because you always have vision on them, you can see if they suddenly make a move and you can avoid the gank so the time they spent waiting in the brush for you to overextend or make a mistake is wasted because their patience didn’t pay off.

By wasting an enemy’s time, you are putting them behind while not losing anything yourself. Another thing you can do if an ally is nearby is ping the enemy that is attempting to gank you so you can counter gank… by doing this, not only will the enemy have their time wasted but they could also possibly suffer a death or having to use an important summoner spell such as [Flash]] which makes them play more defensively because making a mistake with Flash on cooldown could cost you your life.

Don't blame the jungler!

If your jungler hasn't ganked and you die in your lane, it is in no way the junglers fault so don't "/all omg noob Udyr no gank noob jungle i afk". This point links into rage/flame section, just don't do it! Also, don't have a sissy fit and go afk/intentionally feed because your jungler didn't give you the blue/red buff because they are the junglers buffs to give away, they are his creeps, your creeps are in your lane.

The jungler not giving away blue/red buffs might even be for the best of the team because the lanes might not be doing so well which means they could just die and give the buffs to the enemy anyway and that would be a waste so sometimes it's best that the jungler takes the buffs.

However, if you have an energy based jungler or a jungler who doesn't use mana then you should communicate with them so you can get the blue buff or so that it could be given to someone who needs it more such as Anivia or Swain because one of those champions having blue buff is going to be more helpful to the team than a Shen/Riven will be with the buff.

Kill effectiveness and leaving kills to the Ap/Ad!

Kills get you gold which gets you items which gets you damage, survivability or whatever you’re after etc… Therefore, champions that are not going to make the most of the gold and be as productive as possible with it shouldn’t take the kills because you want the champion who is going to increase your chances of winning most by having that extra gold from a kill or two and that could cause a snowball effect on that champion.

Ranged Ad carries are the guys you want to give the kills to because they have the highest sustained damage in any game. The Ap carries should get some kills too especially if your Ap champion is someone like Cassiopeia who has great sustained damage but not as much burst damage compared to other Ap carries such as Veigar and Annie. But ultimately, your team is better off giving the kills to the Ranged Ad. Even the Ap should leave kills to the Ad carry BUT ONLY in situations where you are in control and the position of the enemy team is known.

Do not ever let an enemy that looks like he may have a chance of flashing over that wall or using a dash to get away live; make sure he/she dies no matter what. Secure the kill regardless of whoever gets it if that is the case.

Builds!

When behind, build defense before offense. <---- Very helpful (was to me).
Having a certain item or not having a certain item can make or break a game for you. This is why you should never have a set/fixed build that you never change no matter what! You should have a flexible build that you can adjust to suit the circumstances in the game…

For example, you are solo top lane as Nasus and you are getting heavily harassed by Ap Kennen On your first trip back to base, instead of getting your Sheen for that sweet extra damage perhaps you should get a Null Magic Mantle, a Sight Ward and 1 or 2 Health Potions. This gives you more survivability against the Kennen which means that your laning phase will probably become a little easier just because you can withstand more damage. If he continues to be very aggressive then call on your jungler and nicely ask him/her for a gank… “shyvana, can you gank top please? ” .

Other examples: fed Caitlyn? Buy armor. Fed Brand? Buy magic resist. A lot of players have gotten into this habit of "TONS OF DAMAGE, I NEED IT NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!". Just take it easy, keep calm and think about what you're going to buy carefully because going for that offensive item before getting some defense with fed enemies will snowball the game even more than it has already snowballed.

What's the point of buying damaging items if you can't stay alive to deal that damage you lusted for? Another example of a situation where you might have to change your build a bit for the better of the team; you are playing Tristana and you have high damage but you just can't seem to kill the enemies because they are all so tanky! Click on the enemies and have a look at what they have built and see how much they have... If they have 250 armor because they have stacked it then the best option is Last Whisper because it gives you 40% armor penetration so that's 100 armor that it will shred (woah).

Or if there's an enemy that has 35456k health, you might wanna get Madred's Bloodrazor for the % of max health per hit. Don't get the maximal damage items because you think it will deal the most damage, just think.

Be able to play a variety of champions!

Being able to play a wide variety of champions in different roles is very important because let's say you can only play 2 champions comfortably... What if that champion gets banned or picked by someone else before you on the other team? What are you going to do then? What you're going to do is pick a champion who you are not familiar with and then proceed to not doing well in game, thus causing the game to snowball which will end as a loss for your team.

Also, isn't it boring to play the same champions over and over again? Being comfortable with numerous champions is mostly important in ranked games which are very competitive (may not seem like it because of all the trolls and flaming but the only reason people troll and flame is because they have been losing so they want others to lose with them as they are angry at the fact that they are not coming out victorious in games).

The best way to learn champions is by going into normal games and practicing them. Remember... practice makes perfect!

Once you have learned to play multiple champions for each role but still are not completely sure what you should pick and when you should pick it when in champ select, have a look at this guide by Infectious Lepar: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-le...lection-195871

Summary

Thanks so much for reading, guys. I sincerely hope that you found this guide useful! I believe that the main factor in aiding yourself to becoming better at LoL is willingness to learn from other people as well as realizing your own mistakes instead of always blaming your team.

So, overall I would just like to ask you guys to think more when you're in a game because nobody ever has a perfect game and there are always things that they can improve whether that's last hitting, map awareness or just knowledge of how the game works and the mechanics of the game.

If you guys are looking for guides for specific roles, I think these might be useful:

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!